HANS MÀRCHAND

ON A Q U E S T I O N OF A S P E C T :
A COMPARISON B E T W E E N THE PR O­
G R E S S I V E FORM IN E N G L I S H AND T H A T
IN I T A L I A N A N D S P A N I S H

Verbs are linguistic signs expressing actional processes. Actions

have a wide range of variation according to the angle under w hich
they are viewed. The various angles of vision m ay be considered as
the m etalingual stim uli which are gram m atically m irrored by such
taxem es as voice, mode, tense, num ber. Taxemes are thus the
linguistic responses to m etalingual stimuli. T heir num ber is not
to be determ ined a priori, the concepts w hich m ay be introduced
in viewing a process being unlim ited in theory. In practice, how ­
ever, m orphem es and taxemes are restricted so th a t one linguistic
form covers several concepts w hich are related in one way or ano­
ther. Each linguistic system is different according to the response it
m akes to stim ulating concepts. Many m etalingual stim uli have
not been strong enough to evoke a response in the form of a
linguistic category in one system while in another system taxem es
have developed. To illustrate this we will concentrate on one
particu lar predication, a statem ent m ade about a process co-exten-
sive w ith the time of the speaker.
The sun rises in the east is a statem ent about a process th at
takes place in accordance w ith natural laws. The occurrence is
thought of as potential, as a happening to be expected, it is not
considered as actually realized. W hat we w ant to say is th a t it is in
the natu re of the sun to rise in the east. A sentence such as
a baker bakes bread is sim ilar to the preceding type in th a t again
we m ake a statem ent about a process w hich is not thought of as
realized on the time plane. B ut the validity of the statem ent is
general not by natural law but by logical definition of the subject:
the predication bakes bread m erely analyses the concept baker.
Opposing the foregoing types to the sentence m y brother goes to
college, we are no longer concerned w ith general statem ents. The
idea we m ean to convey is th at m y brother is a student and attends
classes at college. His going to college is thought of as realized in

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the present, a regular repetition of occurrence being im plicitly

understood. A fourth type of predication is that represented by
the form ula I baptize thee in the name o f the Father and the Son
and the H oly Ghost. The predication and the act are identical: the
saying of it really is the baptizing. This predication has been
term ed predication of coincidence (G Koinzidenzfall) by Kosch-
m ieder.1
All the foregoing types of predication are gathered in one
taxeme in such languages as English, German, the Romance
languages, Latin, Old Greek, the common denom inator being the
fact th a t all four occurrences are seen as co-extensive w ith the
time at which the speaker m akes the predication. In Turkish, for
instance, only the type m y brother goes to College w ould be
expressed by a present tense whereas the three other predications
would be expressed by an extratem poral form th at is unknow n
to Indo-European languages, an Absolutive w hich is used for p ro ­
cesses not thought of as realized on the tim e plane.
Let us now add a fifth type: 7 am writing. We have here the
expression for a single action observed in its phase of dynam ic
happening. As the expression of im m ediate present tim e it is
gram m atically contrastive w ith the expression of non-im m ediate
present time as in I write about ten letters every day. Many
languages do not m ake such a distinction. All tem poral processes
co-extensive w ith the tim e of the speaker are treated alike and
expressed by th e same present tense category in Old Greek, Latin,
German, T urkish a n d Russian.
Many languages have developed aspects to distinguish processes
viewed as completed from those viewed as incomplete. The phe­
nom enon is now usually called the opposition of perfective and
imperfective aspect. In general, the opposition is neutralized for
the present as present tim e is incom plete in itself, so a perfective
aspect is incom patible w ith present time. Aspectual opposition is
therefore usually expressed w ith regard to past time only, and
we find oppositional patterns of perfective and imperfective p re­
terits in Old Greek, L atin and other languages. To the Latin
pattern scripsi~scribebam correspond Old Greek égrapsa^égra-
phon, Italian scrissi^scrivevo, Spanish escribí^escribía, F rench
1 E. K oschm ieder, Z a d en Grundfragen d e r A spe ktth eorie , In d ogerm a n ìsch e
F orschungen 53 (1935) 280— 300.

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 ON A Q UESTION OF ASPECT

j ’écrivis (literary speech) respectively j ’ai écrit (spoken French) ~

i ’écriuciis, T urkish y a zd im ^y a ziy o rd u m , R ussian ja n a p isá l^ ja
pisál. But incompleteness refers to a single action as well as to the
time in w hich the action is or m ay be repeated. L atin scribebam
and the other imperfective Preterits render several concepts and
correspond to several form s in English: to I was w riting (when he
came home) w here a single action is' incomplete, to 1 wrote
[regularly), I would write, I used to write w here we have imper-
fectivity insofar as the process adm its of fu rth e r continuation,
i. e. w here the series of action is potentially or actually incomplete.
If incompleteness of single action and incom pleteness of process
in general are not kept apart in the Preterit, they are not in the
Present either, so scribo etc. m ean I am w riting [at the present
m om ent) as well as I write [about ten letters every day). Now,
English has developed its Progressive F orm whose function it is
to express imperfective single action, and the Rom ance philologist,
in this connection, naturally thinks of the Progressive Form in
Italian and Spanish w ith its sim ilar functions (Portuguese also
has the Progressive Form , but it will not be discussed here). It
will therefore be interesting to com pare English w ith the said
Rom ance languages in this respect. In order to do this, we have
to state m ore clearly the m eaning and function of the Progressive
Form in English.
The basic function of the Progressive F orm is to denote one
single action observed in the dynam ic process of happening and
as such imperfective in character. T hat the characteristic of the
Progressive Form is to denote the action itself was first pointed
out by Bodelsen.1 I had come to a sim ilar conclusion indepen­
dently, but did not publish m y paper w hen I saw Bodelsen’s
article w hich I had not know n of. His theory is the following.
“The difference between the expanded and the simple form is
that, while the simple forms either describe 1) statem ents of facts
(events, or the results of actions), or 2) w h at is habitual or of
general validity, the expanded form s describe the actions them ­
selves” (222— 223). Dwight L. B olinger3 also holds th at the basic

2 C. A. Bodelsen, T h e E x p a n d e d T en ses in M o d e r n English, Englische

Stu dien 71 (1936— 37) 220— 238.
2 D w igh t L. B olinger, More on the P r e se n t T en se in English, Language 23
(1917) 434— 436.

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function of the Simple Present is “fact of process’". Many years

later, Anna Granville Hatcher,* gave the same explanation of the
m eaning and function of the progressive form . According to her,
the progressive form describes “overt o r developing activity or
b o th ’’. One very valuable contribution of h er paper is to have
pointed out th at in contrasting simple and progressive tenses we
m ust start from the progressive form , that “ the simple form has
no basic m eaning” and has been “indifferent to aspect from the
earliest period of our language know n to u s” (259). In term s of
synchronic description we will have to state th at the progressive
form is m arked, while the simple form is unm arked. W e m ay
therefore expect to find expressed in the simple present any type
of concept we have discussed at the beginning: the sun rises in the
east / a baker bakes bread / m y brother goes to college / / baptize
thee in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Only one concept is excluded: th a t of motion, i. e. visible or
audible single action. In English, the answ er to the question “ w hat
kind of activity is going on at this m om ent?” can only be in term s
of a progressive present. This m eans that the Progressive Present
has functional value, gram m atical relevancy w ith all verbs that
have a w hat I will call ‘actional’ character, denoting visible action
as in write, read, sm oke, audible action as in talk, sing, bark. The

* Anna Granville H atcher, T he Use o f the P ro g re ss iv e F o r m in English.

A N e w A pproach, L anguage 27 (1951) 254— 280. M iss H atch er’s pap er c o n ­
tains a num ber o f m isrep resentations. S h e has overlo o k ed B od elsen 's m ost
im portant paper, and sh e is equally unaw are o f M ossé’s fu n d am en tal w ork,
L ’H istoire de la F o rm e P é r ip h ra stiq u e é t r e + P a r t i c i p e P r e s e n t en G erm anique
(P aris 1938), citing as referen ces instead older w ork s b y Akerlund and Curme.
A ccording to Miss H atcher, n o b o d y has ever rem arked o n the p red ication o f
coin cid en ce (267). As early as 1935, K oschm ieder treated the su bject (in the
article quoted fn 1), reverting to it in later stu dies (last in Zur D e slim m u n g
d e r F un ktio n en g ra m m a tisc h e r K ategorien. M ünchen 1945. Ahhandlun gen der
B a g erischen A kad e m ie d e r W issen sc h aften , P h ilo s o p h isc h -h is to r is ch e Abteil-
ung. N eue Falge. H eft 25). M iss H atcher also con ten d s that the in c o m p a ti­
b ility o f present tim e and p erfective asp ect has never b een p oin ted out
(265— 266, fn 32). F or an exten sive treatm ent o f the su bject see th e ju st
m entioned studies by K oschm ieder, also, for su m m arizin g statem en ts, any
R ussian gram mar. I quote at random from Anna H. S em eonoff, .4 N eiv
Russian Grammar, 4th E dition, N ew York 1945, p. 80: “The perfective asp ect
h as no p resent tense, as in the present tim e any action or state is incom plete,
and in a ‘lastin g’ state.”

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progressive form always has the same force to express single

action in progress, but the present is one, though not the only
case w here the progressive form has gram m atical relevancy. An
action in the present has no free variants of linguistic expression:
it is raining, it is snowing, I am reading, writing, sm oking, talking,
singing cannot alternate w ith a sim ple present. A case of past time
w here the progressive form cannot alternate w ith a simple preterit
is the type I was writing when he came w here a continuing action
is contrasted with an ingressive process. It w ould be beyond the
lim its of this paper to describe the whole system of gram m atically
relevant forms. A full description is irrelevant to our subject any­
way. O ur purpose is to show that there are such gram m atically rele­
vant cases, two of them being the im m ediate present and the past in
the situations just described. It is sufficient to show th at Mossé 5 is
wrong in saying “il n ’existe pas d’emploi qui soit une servitude
gram m aticale absolue .. . l ’usage de la F P est facultatif” (II. 480).
This gram m atical relevancy wo have to bear in m ind w hen we
consider the linguistic situation in Italian a n d Spanish.
As in English, the progressive form is used in Italian to denote
an action just being performed. This usage is illustrated by such
sentences as
io sto cercando dì farglielo capire ‘I am trying to m ake him
understand it’ /
stiamo preparando la tavola ‘we are laying the table’ /
la donna sta aspettando un bambino ‘the lady is expecting a baby’/
ci sto pensando ‘I am thinking it over’ /, fo r past time:
la donna stava lavorando nella cucina ‘the wom an was w orking
in the kitchen’ /
Don Camillo stava dandosi da fare nella chiesa deserta ‘Don
Camillo was arranging things in the deserted church’.
Exam ples of Spanish usage are:
estoy leyendo un libro ‘I am reading a book’ /
m e estoy volviendo loco ‘I am going crazy’ /
m e estoy divirtiendo ‘I am enjoying m yself’ /
se está haciendo tarde ‘it is getting late’ /
estaban hablando en voz baja ‘they were talking in a low voice’ /
estaba escribiendo una carta ‘he was w riting a letter’.
5 w ork quoted fn 4.

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A description of usage does not belong here." A few parenthetical

rem arks m ay be perm itted, though. Italian uses only the present
and the im perfect: sto scrivendo and stavo scrivendo, but Spanish
has developed the progressive w ith all form s of the verb estar. In
English, some nonactional verbs can be used in the progressive
form to stress the im m ediate present aspect of a process (as in
I am rem em bering now, I am hoping that etc.). In Italian, it would
be impossible to use a progressive form instead of spero, suppongo,
ricordo, vivo, comincio, n o r do verbs denoting perception such as
udire and vedere occur in the progressive form . Essere and avere
are likewise excluded. Unlike Italian, Spanish uses the progressive
also w ith verbs denoting emotion, as temer, querer, desear and
with verbs denoting perception, as ver, oir. The difference, how ­
ever, w hich interests us here, is of a more fundam ental kind.
W hile English on the one hand and Italian and Spanish on the
other have both developed a progressive form , there is a great
functional difference between the two groups. Italian sto scrivendo
and scrivo like Spanish estoy escribiendo and escribo are gram m a­
tically non-contrastive, they are variants of the same taxeme. We
can freely interchange sto lavorando and lavoro, sto morendo dal
caldo and muoio dal caldo, il sole sta sorgendo and il sole sorge,
ci stanno cercando and ci cercano. In the same sentence we find
Im perfect and progressive preterit side by side, w ithout any
gram m atical difference. Il Pizzi era in cucina e stava rimestando
la polenta. La moglie preparava la tavola e il ragazzo . . . m etteva
legna sul fuoco (Don Camillo 301).
The situation is not different in Spanish. Progressive Present
can alternate w ith the Simple Present in such obviously actional
cases as llueve and está lloviendo, fum o and estoy fum ando,
escribo una carta and estoy escribiendo una carta. I am not saying,
of course, that there is no difference at all between scrivo and
sto scrivendo, escribo and estoy escribiendo. There is, b u t it is

* U nfortunately, a descrip tion o f usage exists n either for Italian n or for

Spanish. There are o n ly tw o b ook s dealin g w ith the history o f the p rogressive
form : Stanko Skerlj, S y n ta x e du P a rtic ip e P ré se n t et du Gérondif en Vieil
Italien, Pairis 1926 (fase. 219 de la B ibliothèque de VÉcole des H autes É tades-,
and R obert K. Spaulding, H is to r y and S y n t a x o f the P ro gressive Construction s
in Spanish. U niversity o f C alifornia P ress 1926 (Un iversity o f California P u b ­
lications in M odern P h ilo lo g y 13.3, 229— 281).

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stylistic, not gram m atical. The situation m ay be illustrated by a

French example. The answ er to m y question w hat are you doingl
m ay be either j’écris une lettre ou je suis en train d’écrire une
lettre w ithout any other than a gram m atically non relevant diffe­
rence. The tu rn je suis en train d’écrire stresses the fact th a t I am
in the m idst of the action, b u t j ’écris is gram m atically just as
correct. In English, however, the question w hat are you doing at
this m o m e n t? leaves me no choice between I am writing and
I write. The only gram m atically possible form is I am w riting a
letter as against two variants in Italian and Spanish.
The problem left is to try to explain these facts w ithin the
gram m atical structure of the languages in question. Like German,
English originally does not know the gram m atical category
‘aspect’. In all the stages of its history it has therefore been neutral
to an opposition perfectivity ~ im perfectivity. The concept ‘imper-
fective aspect w ith regard to a single action’ has only recently
taken root. Things are quite different in Italian and Spanish. Both
languages have inherited from Latin the aspectual opposition
perfectivity ~ imperfectivity, m orphologically expressed for past
time only. W e have already referred to the p attern scrissi^1scri­
vevo, escribí^escribía. Unlike English, these languages are there­
fore not indifferent to aspect in general, though they have not
developed the subcategory ‘im perfectivity of single action ~ perfec­
tivity of single action’. This seems to me to offer the key to our
problem : w ithin the general category ‘im periective process’, Latin
scribebam and its Romance continuants scrivevo, escribía were
also capable of expressing the idea of im perfective single action.
On the other hand, the Romance languages developed the pro­
gressive form w hich had the sole function of denoting single
action. The linguistic form for the sm aller concept therefore had
to compete w ith the larger one of imperfective process in general
represented by the Im perfect w hereas no such fight was involved
in the establishm ent of the progressive form in English. This
language had never know n the category aspect at all, so here it
was the gram m atical concept of imperfective single action that
introduced the entirely new category of aspect into English.
This m eans that w ith regard to a single action in the process of
development the sentence io scrivevo quando m io padre entrò is
non-contrastive w ith stavo scrivendo quando mio padre entrò. In

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Spanish also, we have the sentence escribía cuando m i padre entró

in non-contrastive distribution w ith estaba escribiendo cuando m i
padre entró. F o r present time, the opposition perfectivity~ im per-
fectivity is neutralized, as we have already pointed out. A present
process is always imperfective. Latin scribo a n d Romance scrivo,
escribo therefore, on the plane of time co-extensive w ith the
speaker, correspond to Latin scribebam, Rom ance scrivevo, escribía
only, but can represent both facets ju st described. Consequently
sto scrivendo, estoy escribiendo are alternants of scrivo, escribo.
This is, I think, the solution of the problem w hy the opposition
Simple P resent~ P rogressive Present is non-contrastive in Italian
and Spanish and why it is gram m atically distinctive in English.

Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, N. Y.

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